- 3 months ago
Bicycling’s editorial director Bill Strickland sits down with filmmaker Donna Crain and former professional cyclist Eros Poli to talk about their new feature film, GRINTA!. The film follows Poli as he returns to Mont Ventoux, revisiting his improbable 1994 Tour de France stage triumph when the rouleur defied the odds to hold off the era’s top climbers for a stunning victory.
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00:00We're here to talk about one of the most remarkable, moving and inspiring documentaries about bike
00:06racing that I've ever seen. We have the creators, Donna and Jay, and we have the creator of the
00:12ride that the documentary is about, Eros Pali. The documentary is called Grinta, which means
00:20Eros. Grit. Never give up. Grit. Suffering. And just keep going. And you just kept going.
00:27And now I want to dive into that a little bit, really briefly. Can you tell us about your ride
00:35up Mont Ventoux, 1994, and what the circumstance was that led you to this unprecedented, stunning,
00:44still surprising victory? I'm attacked because someone pissed me off. I was stopped for P
00:50and somebody attacked on the wrong moment. I show you now how can attack on the stage to the front.
00:58I remember I spent about 15k to arrive at the right moment to attack. And then there was no space
01:08for attack in the room because all the road was completely occupied by the peloton. So there was
01:16rock on the right side. And at a certain moment, I saw some grass. I decided to move out from the
01:24for the road and jump in the grass for 50 meters and jump again on the road, push down the last
01:30gear, the 12, because the time had 54, 12, 24 behind with 39 in the front. They tried to catch me, but
01:40there was my territory. I was a good ruler. And then I kept going. And then at a certain moment,
01:49arrived at the motorbike, they said, okay, you have three minutes, then four, then five. And the moment
01:57I started to calculate, maybe I can do the, I can try for the stage. The sunshine was over me because
02:08the inner shadow was about 3 p.m. Can you imagine? It was, I think it was more than 90 Celsius,
02:1490 in Fahrenheit. It was about 42 Celsius. So, super hot. I remember I drink so much water,
02:22put some water on my neck to try to cool down a bit. The important survive. The terrific moment was one
02:34Pantani attack. That was the moment because the motorbike, hey, Pantani attack. I said, okay,
02:41mama mia. Just one can catch me in the moment too. Pantani.
02:48Yeah. So, iconic, legendary, cruel crime. You had no business being ahead of the pack at that point,
02:56but you had a huge lead. You gutted it out, you used your grit, and you won ahead of some of the
03:03greatest climbers of that generation. As you said, Marco Pantani, Miguel Indurain, I think Richard
03:10Varank, I don't know if Luc LeBlanc was in there. I remember watching this in 1994. I don't think it was
03:16live. I think it was a 30-minute recap, but I was with Bicycling, and I had been hearing through the
03:22day, some of my friends in Europe were like, you're not going to believe this stage. You're not going
03:25to believe what happened. I don't want to ruin it for you. You got to watch. You got to watch.
03:30And then I remember watching it and just thinking like this, this did not happen. Like what,
03:38what just happened? Like who is this? You know, I knew who you were. You had been, you had been a great
03:43role player, a great role player, a great sprinter. You had been to the Olympics. You wore your, you
03:52know, your trademark visor, cycling cap without a top, knew who you were, started watching the stage.
03:59And I was like, well, this is going to be fascinating. This guy is turning himself inside out.
04:03It's going to be great when they catch him because what a, you know, what a testament to just, to, to,
04:09to gutsiness. And you won. And that stage always stuck with me.
04:19And I've, I've, myself have, you know, thought about that every once in a while when things were
04:25really going bad and I needed to dig deep on a bike. And I thought I understood it. And then I
04:32watched the documentary Grinta and I found out there's so much more to it than I ever knew.
04:41I'm a, I'm a deep student of bike racing and of cycling, but there was so much more to it,
04:47so much more that was moving. And it's such a story from the heart. Um, Don, Donna and Jay, you,
04:53you, you helped capture all these moments. Do you, do you have any insight on how did this grow for
05:03you the way it did for me? You know, we, we met Eros a few years ago. We were on an Angamba cycling
05:08trip in Tuscany and he's telling this story. We're sitting across the table from him. He has a glass of
05:13wine and we just love hearing him. I know him tell that story so much. And it was really our idea that we
05:21would make it possible for him to share the story in much the same way. Once we got there last year
05:26and started filming, we realized how much of this is certainly about cycling and huge achievement.
05:32And it's really inspirational, but it's about love and family and heart. Like you said,
05:38that that's what really, in addition to Eros just being an amazing leading man, that's what really makes
05:45the story resonate for people when they see the film is, are those additional aspects. And for non-cyclists
05:51who maybe don't know anything about cycling, they can appreciate the beat, but it's the things that,
05:55it's the way it makes them feel that we, we realize that that makes a difference when they see Gritta.
06:00I would say, if you think, you know, bike racing, you think, you know, grit, but also if you think,
06:05you know, family, if you think, you know, sacrifice, if you think, you know, what it means to love
06:11something or other people, you have to see this documentary. I, I was brought close to tears and I've heard
06:19that at screenings, um, people have come out crying and I, it, it's no, no surprise to me. I'm ju,
06:26I'm just blown away by how moving this documentary is. You know, for a cyclist, uh, especially like,
06:38uh, a ruler like me, our domestic is, uh, trying to do the best, our best, my best was in the sprint,
06:45but the day was something unique. But for me, normal, I tried to win a stage. I was lucky. I won the stage
06:52to the front for me. It was just a stage. It was not a stage. I didn't realize that the stage movement
06:59was a so huge moment, so huge monument climb. For me, it was just a normal climb. It's my job to
07:08suffering on the bike. You know, cyclists, the first job is, the first rule is suffering.
07:16All day, for all your life as a cyclist, you must be suffering. I still suffer right now, riding my
07:24bike. And then every time I go back to the movement too, uh, I said, I can't believe that. I can't believe
07:32I did it. It's impossible. How I did it. Like you said, just, huh? And, uh, suffering and greater.
07:42Yeah. Just this. Never give up. Yeah. Let's get into that for a second, because you, you were an
07:49underdog. And I think that's also an important part of why this speaks to so many people. So few of us
07:55are champions, uh, you know, no matter what we do, you know, myself included, whether that's in bike
08:02racing or, you know, anything else that I really pursue. Very few actual victories in my life. A lot
08:12of, a lot of striving and I put my heart into everything. But those, those moments where I
08:18triumph, uh, they don't come for me that easy. And I think that's true for a lot of people.
08:23And you were an underdog, not only in the sense that you're a giant of a man going up this giant
08:29of a mountain, but you were also, uh, a domestique, a worker. And I remember at the time
08:34a French journalist, you know, in kind of that way they have of describing things said something like
08:42you had won a race for all the, all the servants and workers. Uh, and I, I think that's part of
08:51what really makes this, that's one of the many things that really makes this story resonate,
08:56is that we can see ourselves in what you did. I think everybody, the worker like me, that domestically
09:03appreciate the day because, uh, you know, never happened. At domestique, yeah, we can win a normal stage,
09:13but a big stage like that is impossible. So, it was the, the revenge for the workers,
09:21probably for people like me. Uh, one, can happen, can, nothing's possible. For me, it was impossible
09:31for them, but I didn't. I remember one day I met this, I think it was in some place, uh, knowledge
09:40gate, uh, knowledge gate from Norway, a cyclist told me, he told me, he told me, he told me,
09:45exactly like me. He said, you know, I cry watching you with you because you're a big fellow like me.
09:52So I, Hey, I can do it. If you do it, I can do it too. So this makes me very proud of the moment
10:01and very helpful sometimes to make people to try to keep going. Maybe one day they can catch the dream.
10:11That's a, that's a very important part of this because I, you know, I'm in awe of Tade Pogaccia.
10:18I can never, never dream of doing anything close to what he does. In, in that era, I loved Marco
10:25Pantani. I knew I could never climb, you know, anywhere close to the way he climbs. But when I saw
10:31you going up Vantu, suffering up Vantu and turning yourself inside out, I remember thinking,
10:39and I've thought this at various times on various bike rides, or even in other parts of my life,
10:44when things have been really hard. Oh, I can try. I can keep trying. I can, I can have the same kind
10:52of grit, uh, that era showed on Mont Vantu. And that's universal. That's in all of us and we can dig
11:00down and find it. And I think that's key to why people cry when they see this, when they see
11:09this documentary. Um, I'd be curious to hear Jay and Donna, like as you, as you started filming,
11:16was, was that something you knew at the beginning or was that something that you discovered as you
11:20started hearing from people about it? We felt it when we were filming it. Um, but so it was really
11:28gratifying as people were watching, you know, we started showing roughs to some of our friends and
11:32family early on and almost from the beginning that they were, that they had that, that takeaway
11:38and just the inspiration. And again, even for people who aren't cyclists, who watch it
11:43are inspired to do something. And, and part of what people love about it, you know, Jay and I are in
11:49midlife. Eros is in midlife. People love that. He's still cycling. He's still working in the cycling
11:55industry. You know, he did that 30 years ago and he's going right back up that really steep mountain
12:01today really resonates with people as well. That's a great point. This is a living, breathing
12:07documentary, right? A lot of, a lot of these sort of documentaries about things that happened in the
12:12past in this other era, they're fascinating and they're great stories and they can move us. But
12:18guess what? You can go and ride with Eros. You can go off onto, you can sit down and have a glass of
12:23wine with them. And so it feels also very contemporary. And I think that's part of the inspiration for me is,
12:29hey, I can, I can still get a piece of this myself.
12:33I'm inspiring. People come to me.
12:36I have a glass of wine. They go up slow, slow, take it easy.
12:41Because this reaches so many people beyond cyclists, which I think is really important and
12:46really cool. Where's the documentary being shown? Where can people see it? And where will they be
12:51able to see it? We're screening at film festivals and hopefully many, many more. And we also are
12:58organizing screenings throughout the states and hopefully Europe, heading all the way up to the
13:03women's fondue stage of next year's Tour de France. But our goal is that as we get it in front of as
13:09many people as we possibly can, because people need a feel good story right now. And Gritta certainly is one of those.
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